​​7 Tips to Write Back-in-Stock Emails (+ 12 Examples)

Plus, many other occasions are calling for a restock email. For instance, when seasonal products or bestsellers are back for a limited time.

So, if you want to learn how to craft an irresistible back-in-stock announcement, here’s what you need to know.

What’s so special about back-in-stock emails?

Well, these aren't just any emails. They’re all about making sure no one misses out on something they might love because it was out of stock.

There's something inherently exciting about getting a chance at snagging an item that is so popular it got sold out.

According to Barilliance research, back-in-stock emails see average conversion rates of 14%. That means out of every 100 emails sent, 14 lead to a sale.

Their research also found that back-in-stock email campaigns had an average open rate of 65.32%, which was almost 70% better than post-purchase emails, the lowest performing email campaign type analyzed.

3 Tips for writing a back-in-stock email

Back-in-stock emails have only one goal: to inform subscribers about the restocking. Your job is to show them the product, remind them what makes it so high in demand, and persuade them to take action quickly. Here’s how you do it 👇

Showcase the product

In theory, you can send a back-in-stock email highlighting multiple restocked products. However, that would depend on the type of campaign you’re sending.

If you’re crafting an email for those who signed up to get notified, you should focus on showcasing the product the subscriber said they wanted to buy.

On the other hand, if you’re sending a mass email about one of the bestsellers being back in stock, it’s acceptable to feature several products or product variants. In fact, this tactic might help you boost email click-through rate because it increases the chances that customers will discover something irresistible.

For example, this is how Public Goods notifies customers of their bestselling candles being back in stock:

One exception to this rule is when you relaunch a seasonal product. In that case, you’re not saying a product is back in stock, but that a whole category of products is.

As a rule of thumb, show one product per email and personalize it based on the subscriber's preferences.

Remind them why the product is in demand

Even if you’re sending a personalized notification, by the time you email your subscribers about a product’s re-stock, they will have likely forgotten why they wanted it in the first place. And if you’re sending a mass campaign, it might be the first time some subscribers hear about the product. This means you still need to sell it.

First and foremost, focus on selling the product as if the subscriber hadn’t shown interest in it. Use copy and images much as you'd use in a product page.

It may seem like overkill, but as you saw previously, people can forget why they had signed up, especially if it’s been months since that happened. Showcase your brand and your product’s value proposition so you can reignite their desire.

In the previous example, you can see how important it is to use product images to highlight different parts of the product. Your images could include one with a flat background, another using the product, another emphasizing a technical feature, and so on.

For personalized restock notifications, remind them that they signed up to get the news. A single sentence that says something like “the product you wanted is back.” Therefore, if they ask themselves, “why is this brand messaging me?” they’ll know why.

Leverage scarcity

In many cases, products go out of stock due to their popularity. In others, it is due to seasonality or limited production.

Whatever the case, you want to leverage the intrinsic scarcity of the re-stocked product.

You can say something like, “buy this product before it runs out.” Alternatively, you can mention when it will be out of stock again or how much stock there is.

Although this exceeds the topic of this article, use scarcity only when the product is truly scarce. Marketers have earned a bad rep due to their abuse of “false scarcity” tactics; you wouldn't want your store to get such a reputation, so you should avoid it.

Seasonal products, like a New Year’s dress, are one such example of an appropriately scarce product.

Another case is when a product has limited available units, like a small batch of coffee or a plant species.

To keep it simple, you can just tell them the re-stocked product is highly popular and that it’s likely to go out of stock soon (once again, if you know that's the case).

Everlane, an online clothing store, uses this tactic when bringing their bestsellers back to stock:

One interesting way to use scarcity is to tell them you can only guarantee the stock until they add the product to the cart. This motivates the recipient to take action without the need for a discount.

20 Back-in-stock email subject lines ideas to steal

One key part of any email campaign is to use subject lines that catch people’s attention. For a back-in-stock email, that’s most likely highlighting the good news the product is back and mentioning its scarcity.

As always, you want to keep the subject line short and concise. You’ve got limited space, so you must make the most of it.

The following 20 subject lines are ideal for any back-in-stock email campaign:

• Good news! Your item is back
• {product} is back in stock. Don’t wait!
• {product} is back in stock. Only {stock} available
• {product} is back in stock until {date}
• Your item is back in stock. What are you waiting for?
• Hurry! {product} is in stock again
• Just in time for the holidays, {product} is back
• Finally back in stock!
• Back by popular demand, {product} is back
• The wait is finally over
• We’ve got something special for you
• You said you wanted to know about this
• We thought of you when we saw this
• Don’t let this new stock get away!
• Check out what’s finally back
• Back in stock—{product}
• The Limited edition {product} is back. Hurry up!
• Lucky you. That sold-out item you wanted is back!
• You said you wanted it, so we brought it back
• Thanks for waiting, {product} is back in stock!

Ideally, you want to use dynamic text replacement so that the product the recipient subscribed for shows up in the subject line (that's what the “{product}” in the previous examples is meant to do). If the product is limited by a date or a certain stock amount, mention it.

Remember that the rule of thumb for subject lines is: the more specific they are, the better they will perform.

3 Tips for running a back-in-stock email campaign

Writing a back-in-stock email is only half the work. You also need to learn how to get people interested and run a campaign successfully. That’s what you are about to see.

1. Allow people to sign up for back-in-stock news

Each ecommerce platform has its own features and apps for notifying buyers, so you should first find out what’s available for your platform. For the purpose of this article, we’ll use Shopify as an example.

Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t have in-built capabilities for signing up visitors who find an “Out of Stock” message. That’s why you want to install an app specifically for this purpose.

There are dozens of Shopify apps you can use. Three of the most popular are:

• CartBite
• Globo
• Ordersify

Note: We can’t vouch for any of these apps. Also, we’re not affiliated with any of them. These are just some recommendations; please, do your own research before installing any of them.

For example, this is how the Back in Stock notification forms work:

These apps allow you to add an opt-in form so that you can notify those passionate buyers once the product is back in stock.

2. Create a tag and campaign for this segment

Whatever email service provider (ESP) you use, you must create a campaign so that you can message the right subscribers. To do this, you want to skip lists and use tags instead.

Tags are parameters that categorize subscribers based on specific actions (or “events”) they take — in this case, it’d be signing up for stocking news. This shouldn't be hard to do as every major ESP, such as ActiveCampaign, Getsitecontrol, and Klaviyo uses tags.

With tags, you can automatically create campaigns that send emails when you restock a product. To show you how you’d set up a back-in-stock tag and a campaign, we’ll use Klaviyo as an example.

Klaviyo offers an event by default called “Subscribed to Back in Stock. Any subscriber who gets tagged with it will automatically be added to your ”Back in Stock” campaign (or “flow,” as they call them).

Then, you add a “Back in Stock Delay“ so the recipient only gets a message after restocking their item of interest.

Finally, you can use pre-built templates to send the email automatically. Alternatively, you can write and send one manually based on a specific set of dynamic event variables (these will depend on your ecommerce platform).

With this setup, subscribers will get a unique back-in-stock email for each re-stocked product they were interested in.

3. Prioritize your VIPs

To keep your back-in-stock campaigns simple, you want to email every subscriber tagged as interested. However, you could prioritize your best customers, so they get the news first and buy the products before they are out of stock again.

You can call this group the “VIPs,” and they include:

• Past customers
• Customers with the highest average order values
• Customers who belong to a loyalty program

You can handle this segmentation with any of the previous ESPs. All you have to do is tag your buyers according to what you consider a “VIP” status and add them to your back-in-stock automation.

For example, Getsitecontrol allows you to tag subscribers based on their subscription preferences and email interactions. You can then use multiple tags to build a segment and send out a back-in-stock email broadcast to everyone who will be interested in it.

If you don’t know how to do this, check how to add a tag to a campaign for your chosen ESP.

5 final tips to run successful back-in-stock email campaigns

To close this article, I want to share five final tips that can boost your campaign's performance. Although these tips are applicable for any other email marketing campaign, you'll still find them helpful:

• Don’t mix a back-in-stock with other campaigns — make it all about the re-stocked product and nothing more
• Add a compelling CTA — a must-do for any email marketing campaign
• Incentives aren’t necessary — unless discounting everything is your main selling strategy or value proposition
• Social proof is always good — if you can, add testimonials and customer review stars from past customers
• Add the product directly to their cart — yes, you can do that, and it can work just as it does for some retailers